In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” author Charlotte Gilman uses symbolism to explore the social confines of women in the 19th century. The story’s unnamed narrator is a woman who is gradually going insane due to the restrictions that her husband, John, places on her. Gilman uses the setting and the symbolism of the wallpaper to illustrate the ways in which women were oppressed and confined by society. The woman in the wallpaper represents the many women who were trapped by society’s expectations and limitations. The home’s landscape, with its locked gates and barred windows, represents the way in which women were kept enclosed and under surveillance. The wallpaper, with its strange faded pattern and its repellent smell, becomes a representation of the oppression that the narrator feels